


A moment is worth a thousand words

by Excalibur



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 10:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10660233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Excalibur/pseuds/Excalibur
Summary: Some mistakes waylay even destiny.





	A moment is worth a thousand words

There is an odd curse of constancy that accompanies destiny, the dark-haired man thinks as he walks home through the rain, noting absently that his ride forgot about him again.

In the same way that the tide is blessed always to continue washing up onto the shore, so too is it cursed to be summoned back each time it reaches its crest. And as the blue-eyed man forces himself to piece his washed-up heart back together after every disappointment, so too there will always be another waiting to strike him on the horizon with the setting of the blazing sun. Day after day, life after lifetime, the oceans feed the skies. 

_A person can only take so much,_ Merlin thinks, the newly-purchased lighter feeling like a dead weight in his pocket, an accusation against himself.

It rains every day, here, and Merlin has forgotten the sun.

 

_Click._

The little sound signals the young boy, the subject of the photograph, that the taking is done. An instant later his smile will relax into something genuine, his shoulders will fall forwards as the tenseness rolls off and he'll shake back the hair gelled to his forehead, prepared as it was for scrutiny of the camera lens. An instant later he will be himself, a fleeting and unique existence unshaped by propriety, a real and complex person. Somebody easily forgotten.

As it is, the photograph shows the handsome boy as he should be, his eyes clear and blue, unruly dark hair tamed and posture healthy with confidence. This same man looks at the photograph now, and the only memory that comes with it is one of white walls and a bright flash and a bored voice saying, "Next, please."

The man has forgotten the rest of that day. He does not remember spilling chocolate ice cream on that uncomfortable pressed white shirt as he later celebrated the victory of his recreational volleyball team, he does not remember the fight he had that morning with his mother about wearing the tie with the red stripes, he does not remember the smell of his father's air freshener in the car on the way to the studio, or the Backstreet Boys hit single he danced to during the drive. He does not remember the smile that his improvised dance had brought to his father’s face. He has forgotten his father’s smile.

He _does_ remember the photograph. Of course he remembers the photograph, it hung on the wall in the dining room for ten years of his life, how could he forget seeing it? But as he stares at it, that's all he remembers. He thinks about the ornate frame that trapped it, accentuating the vignette rounding the corners of the image, and the wall that was a bleached white backdrop behind it. He tries to remember more, but the cheesy smile of the boy in the photo tells him nothing. He is a stranger to this version of himself.

Of all of the photographs he decided to keep, all those years ago as he sifted through his childhood memories, he wondered now why he ever cared for this one.

Then he remembers that it had cost eighteen dollars to have taken and printed, so he felt wrong to throw it out. The crayon drawings had gone into the trash in its place.

 

_Click._

The camera that takes this photograph is brand new, an expensive little thing with a screen on the back in place of a compartment for film. The familiar sound it makes as the picture is taken is played out of a speaker, and the image burns itself into some sort of disc inside, ready to be scraped away with the touch of a button.

In the image, two boys are compulsively pressed against each other, squeezing inside the frame for the barest instant before the blond one must rush off to meet his parents, beckoning as they are just within the background of the frame. The camera dramatizes the imminent parting, capturing the smiles of the two boys as they stand for an eternity, who are in reality almost falling over as they trip over their own feet in haste.

The man remembers the other boy, he remembers his blond hair that darkened just a shade as he grew older, he remembers the blue eyes, a little brighter than the colour of his own. He turns the photograph over and sees the name of a printing company stamped repeatedly in diagonal lines across the stiff, laminated paper. Overtop of the watermark, he reads a scribble of a blue pen as: "w/ Arthur @ airport, visit to grandparents" accompanied by a meaningless date.

He's almost forgotten that he and Arthur used to be friends when they were younger. He notices, now, the heavy backpack Arthur wears in the photo and the shiny, rolling suitcases that stand around the boy's parents in the background.

 _See you in a week!_ He remembers Arthur tossing over his shoulder with a laugh as he walked away. The man wonders what he might've said, then, if he knew that the sickness creeping up over Arthur's mother meant that she wouldn't make the trip home. He wonders what he would've thought if he knew that Arthur's one-week stay would stretch into a month ( _father wants to make preparations for the funeral)_ to a year ( _he says he's not ready to come home yet)_ to long enough that the man forgot he ever had a best friend in high school with blond hair and matching blue eyes.

 

_Click. Click. Click._

He's old enough now to put himself behind the lens of the camera, and the pictures that follow are compositional pieces of objects at abstract angles, bare of human subjects. The wide-angle landscapes and stills of abandoned buildings have been run through Photoshop enough times to be considered art, and they speak to him of a detached sadness, something that can be put aside as easily as flipping the printed image over. So he flips it over. 

He finds a couple plain, greyscale snaps from an artistic stint of his in the darkroom and a few fish-eye shots from one of the mass-produced "vintage" film cameras that had a spell of popularity, but not much else. These were taken at a point in his life where he believed photography could be about conviction, talent and hard work. He learned, later, that among the population there's enough talent and plenty of conviction to go around. Everybody wants to be a photographer. It's the ones with money and time to spend, and all the right connections, that make it.

He got by on photographing local weddings for a while after that, splurging for a DSLR with more numbers than letters in the name and a telephoto lens that was long enough to make him look professional. One spiffy vest later (with a pocket large enough for his portable backup drive, of course, and three extra SD cards) he had himself a career transforming windy, overcast days into fairytale moments of perfection.

The images always sell well after he plays with a few aesthetically pleasing edits (and fakes a bokeh his $3000 camera can never _quite_ reach), drawing out the subjects of the photograph and primping them to their best. He offers cute, vapid shots of accessories as well, arranged in nicely balanced frames, shoes and rose petals and wedding invitations cast in just the right light.

After the purchases are chosen, he always throws in a few candid shots of the couple for free, captures with minimal edits taken without their realization as they talk and laugh together. These inevitably end up boxed in the attic, but Merlin knows that thirty years later, when everything comes down from the frames, these hidden memories will surface and be treasured most of all.

Making memories for others helps to make up for the ones he'll never have himself. It doesn't matter what the day throws against him (his parents, the other man's parents, statutory laws, public opinion or even the expectations of his Church, for instance), all that matters is there will always be _something._

And every time he finds himself awkwardly propping up a flash to bounce light from the ceiling as he stares through the camera lens at any blond, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed man fitting his arm around another woman, he tries to tell himself that it's okay. 

That what's not okay for him on so many levels has to be, because if he were anybody else it would be. Because it's supposed to be.

 

_Click._

The only word to describe the shot is _awkward_. Even the composition is wrong, Merlin can't help but notice, far too imbalanced to be excused as 'artistic'. But what explains all of that is that instead of remaining safely anonymous behind the lens as Merlin usually does, he's actually framed inside of this one, sitting on a sticky vinyl restaurant bench trying to keep his drink from spilling over at the enthusiasm of the blond-haired man's arm thrown over his shoulders.

He remembers having no idea how Arthur had heard about the high school reunion. The blond man had made a name for himself in the States, big enough that even in England Merlin couldn't walk into a computer hardware store without seeing _PENDRAGON_ stamped over a generous amount of the stock. Arthur's father had died not a year after his mother, Arthur told Merlin and a number of others unabashedly over dinner that night, and he'd grown up with his grandparents for a few years until he'd bought his way ( _earned_ his way, he'd corrected Merlin) into one of those prestigious American Ivy League schools (Cornell, maybe, not that Merlin remembered, because he didn't care, _obviously)_ that gave you some sort of education and more than its equivalence in bragging rights. And somehow, years later and a continent away, he'd _still_ managed to hear about their pathetic high school reunion.

At first, Merlin wasn't quite sure why Arthur had bothered to fly in for the weekend. It was soon apparent, though, that it was a timeless case of him wanting to see just how much _better_ he'd ended up being from everybody else. Particularly Merlin, if the blonde's relentless teasing was anything to go by.

In the shot, Arthur is a little drunk, but probably less so than he seems. It's obvious he's the guest of honour, here, and loving it, dragging Merlin around with him into the spotlight and telling anybody who would listen that "we used to be best friends beginning of high school". For his part, Merlin ducks his head, dumps the drinks Arthur continues to ply him with into nearby planters and spends his night looking in vain for an opportunity to escape the dead weight of Arthur's arm around his shoulders.

Merlin has lived in this town his entire life, runs his business here, and can't afford to embarrass himself as Arthur can. He can't fly back to the States on Monday leaving it all behind him. He doesn't have the luxury of that escape. 

Squinting at the photograph again, Merlin wonders if he should have suspected a little more to come out of that night. He recognizes Arthur, now, appreciates his windswept blonde hair tousled in a way that makes him look raggedly disheveled; notices that he wears the casual red button-down shirt he saves only for special occasions, and, above all, recognizes the clarity in Arthur's sharp cerulean eyes. A clarity that he knows now to mean that Arthur is perfectly sober. And has a plan.

It became evident later that night, of course, after the awkward photo in the restaurant booth, after Merlin's insistence that he had business to work through the following day, and after a pout from Arthur that was so - well - _endearing_ that Merlin found himself wondering whether he'd really been trying to escape that night at all. He hadn't flirted in an age, and wasn't sure if he'd recognize himself doing it anymore.

And that's how Merlin found himself in a back hallway of the restaurant, pinned against a wall, later in the night when the kitchens closed and the lights dimmed and the restaurant staff were occupied trying to clear the passed-out bodies from their tables out front. And Arthur Pendragon in from of him, pressing him into the cracked plaster, leaning in with a ghost of breath over his cheek, a murmur at the corner of his mouth, and in a moment they were kissing.

It wasn't like any kiss Merlin had ever had before, it was warm and tight and exhilarating and something that made him feel _wanted_. A bare second later the blonde was pulling back, laughing at Merlin's expression and muttering something along the lines of, "Like that, do you?”

And a second later, he was suggesting that they go back to Merlin’s place, that it didn’t have to be a big deal, and that was all it took for Merlin to remember that this didn't mean anything to Arthur. It couldn't. At that point he did push away, face reddening, taking the back alleys home and cancelling his appointments of the weekend so he could stay hidden from the world until Monday. Until Arthur had gone.

 

_Click._

The lighter makes an aborted little sound as the catch flicks open, almost like the beginning of a shutter closing. Merlin throws the photographs down, letting them fall scattered and out of order. The old ashes blanket the memories, waiting in silence for the moment it will take for this new substance to catch fire and burn to darkness with the rest.

The photographs curl, protesting and scared, warping away from the danger. It takes them a while to light. Merlin waits. He remembers.

 

 _Click._

Another memory of another stolen moment emerges in Merlin’s mind as he sees the photograph. They look beautiful in this shot, the dark-haired man mussing the blonde’s hair, both glowing with laughter.

Arthur hadn’t left, all that time ago.

Instead, he had somehow found Merlin’s apartment and had made it his mission to weasel his way into the suburban photographer’s heart.

It had worked, and little by little, Merlin had come alive again. He trusted.

 

***

The blond-haired man has a hard time opening the door with one hand full of fresh-cut lilacs (Merlin's favourite, though his fiancée would never openly admit it) and another occupied with keeping the ever-loosening door handle from falling from its screws. He does finally make his way inside, his lips already prepared with all of the required stipulations of _I'm sorrys_ and _I didn't mean its_ and _Please forgive mes_ , as well as a few others, like _I'm madly in love with you_ and _I can't bear to see you hurt._ And once the apologies were said and done, and Merlin had finished complaining about how _businesslike_ Arthur always managed to turn emotional moments; then he was going to take Merlin out to buy a new doorknob, god dammit. Or convince him to (finally!) move into Arthur's flat, which would be even better. _But it's too clean!_ He can already imagine Merlin protesting.

He calls Merlin's name out to the cramped apartment, the clutter soaking up the beckon so not even an echo bounces back to greet him. He doesn't place what seems strange until he steps inside, and notices that every photo frame in the house (most propped up against miscellaneous objects because Merlin is too lazy, or too inept, to hang them, and won't let Arthur do it for him) is empty. It's like in the movies where some strange magic seeps its way under the glass of people's lives and erases the inhabitants from memory. 

"Merlin?" Arthur calls again, without much hope. He shoulders the flowers awkwardly, having expected to have already been able to shove them into Merlin's waiting arms and rid himself of the burden. He picks his way through the clutter on Merlin's floor to the plain, black frame in the corner, the large one that always holds the photo Merlin is currently most proud of.

It sits empty, like the others, but that isn't what throws Arthur. There is inexplicably a hammer and nails lying beside the frame, inexplicable because Merlin would never _build_ something. If he ran the risk of cutting off at least three appendages coming near a band saw (as Merlin's grade nine woodshop teacher had so kindly informed him, to Arthur's glee as he remembered), he could probably manage at least a finger with a hammer. 

Had he been trying to hang the pictures? And that's when Arthur remembers -

 _Why won't you let me hang them, Merlin?_ he'd asked one night over dinner, studying a shot, balanced against a rotten pear, of the two of them on a pair of swings. _I don't want to impose,_ Merlin had answered, averting his eyes. Arthur had called that out as nonsense and - oh God - told Merlin he'd do it. How long ago had that been?

"I don't see why you had to be such a twig about it," Arthur remembered telling Merlin. "If you'd only asked, I could have done it last week."

Merlin still wouldn't look at him. "Yeah, I'm sure you're right," he'd mumbled.

Narrowing his eyes, Arthur had demanded, "What aren't you telling me, Merlin?"

"Nothing. I'm an open book."

But Arthur hadn't stood for that. It usually took him less time to have his way with Merlin, but fifteen minutes later he'd apparently persevered enough to warrant Merlin confessing, "You said you'd fix the sink a while ago, and I thought you just might want to do that first."

Arthur had forgotten. He was flustered - he couldn't have said that _two months ago_ , surely, it must have just been a week or so, and he was busy, and where had Merlin been washing his hands, anyway?

"Well, there's a sink in the kitchen…" Merlin began, but Arthur wasn't having any of that. He'd fixed the sink that very night, hiding his reddening, embarrassed face amid the plumbing under the counter. Arthur didn't _get_ embarrassed, and he didn't make mistakes. He couldn't have forgotten, he _didn't_ forget, and Merlin was just exaggerating, but one look at Merlin's absurdly pleased face and Arthur didn't have the heart to call him out on it. "I'll do the frames next weekend," Arthur had promised assuredly. "Just set the stuff out next to them - I'll need hammer and nails. Think you can make it to the hardware shop before Saturday?"

And Merlin had answered him with a "Yes, of course" and given him a hug like he hadn't in - well - Arthur couldn't exactly remember how long. They didn't bother finishing dinner. It was cold by then, anyway. The sex was good that night, Arthur remembers with a smile.

But the smile quickly fades when he looks back down at the hammer positioned very obviously next to Merlin's favourite frame. Arthur wipes a thumb over it and finds that a coating of dust has accumulated over the shiny, unworn plastic handle. How hadn't Arthur noticed it there before? He's always _looked_ , always seen this frame, of course, it was where Merlin had kept his most prized photos, of course Arthur always would have _looked_ -

"Merlin?" he calls again, feeling that he'd be better off hoping for the echo, at this point, than the man himself. Neither comes.

It's warm in the room, and Arthur is making his way over to the wall to crack open the window when his knee bangs painfully against the fireplace cover, crocked open into the room.

"Damnit!" Arthur swears, dropping the flowers as he hobbles over to rest on the ledge fronting the fireplace. Had Merlin left that cover open since the _winter?_ Arthur wouldn't put it past him, the lazy git that he was - suddenly, though, something inside the fireplace catches Arthur's eye.

He leans forward to examine the strange glint and digs his way into a pile of ash, surprised to feel warmth to it. Then again, Merlin's apartment was stifling. Air conditioning was but one of the reasons it would be nicer for him to move in with Arthur. All of those thoughts are forgotten, though, when Arthur realizes what he's holding.

It's a ring. Merlin must have thrown it in there. If he remembers well enough, it looks suspiciously similar to the engagement ring he'd had his assistant buy, for Merlin... how long ago, exactly?

Oh Lord. How long ago had he _proposed?_

A small, logical voice inside his head was wondering, _Is that why he won't move in with you?_

But that could be the least of Arthur's concerns, now. He stormed through the apartment, knocking open doors, each empty picture frame a blank punch to the gut - if nothing else, Merlin cared about his pictures. _Photographs,_ he could imagine Merlin correcting him.

He cared about those more than anything.

Everything else was in its place, except when Arthur reached the bathroom. His own toothbrush was there. Merlin's wasn't. 

In a panic, he ran back to the fireplace, a horrifying thought suddenly flooding from the pit of his stomach, ripping him open, something he’d been unwilling to accept since he walked in –

“ _Oh God, oh God, no, no, no,_ ” he muttered quietly to himself, digging into the ask where he’d found the engagement ring, suddenly feeling corners, smooth surfaces, small, flimsy sheets, bare of their frames –

Merlin hadn’t taken his photographs with him. They were here. Some of them. Arthur clapped a hand over his mouth, feeling suddenly ill, pawing through the ash as he snatched bits and pieces of flame-bitten laminated paper from the ruins. 

 

_Click._

The expression on Merlin’s face, captured just the instant it shone in this photo, was an indescribable mix of beguilement and horror at the sound the iPhone has made when the photo was taken. 

“It’s trying –” he stammered. 

“Words, _Mer_ lin,” Arthur had laughed, sliding his arms around his boyfriend’s waist.

“It’s trying to sound like a shutter,” Merlin mused ruefully, then explained, “Though at that speed, the photo would just look –”

“No photography talk, Merlin. This is our day. No discussing work – that’s what you wanted.” Arthur tapped him playfully on the nose.

Merlin looked back at Arthur strangely. “Yeah, but photography is – I mean, it’s not – well, when I said I didn’t want to talk about work today, I really said it because you –”

“Hey,” Arthur admonished, withdrawing his hands. “No pouting. Come on, we’re going to be late for dinner.”

Merlin relented, grinning. “Thanks Arthur,” he murmured, nuzzling his face quickly under his boyfriend’s chin, drawing Arthur’s arms back. “Thanks for tonight. I’ve been waiting for this for _weeks_.”

Arthur smiled. “Me too, Merlin.”

 

_Click._

A round, excited face, framed with curly hair, reaching to throw glitter over… Arthur couldn’t remember. That part of the photo had been eaten away.

He did remember it was a party. 

“You proposed to him? _Already?_ ” His secretary, Gwen, had screamed, a day after finding out the proposal had happened and a day before the dreadful glitter party.

"Yes, Gwen, _you_ bought me the ring, you know,” Arthur muttered, desperately swatting her curly hair away from his face as she bombarded him with a ferocious hug. “But we have a meeting to get to, so if you'll make that call -"

"Forget that, Arthur, this is more important, we need to celebrate -"

"Yes," Mordred had suddenly added with a sneer, creeping up in that odd way he did that made you feel like he was always around. "Maybe he'll actually move in with you, now."

All thoughts of his impending conference flew from Arthur's head as he swiveled around on the ball of his foot, subtly rounding on his coworker Mordred, Gwen nearly falling over in his absence. "How do you know about that?"

"Wait -" Gwen said. "You don't live together? But you said -"

Arthur threw up his hands in exasperation. "He refuses to move into my flat. Says it's too empty.” 

“Have you ever asked him –”

“Of course I've _asked_ him, I ask him to move in with me at least once a week.”

“No,” Gwen said. “I meant, have you asked him if you could move in to his place?”

Arthur paused, annoyed. “That would be stupid. His place is a hovel – why would we want to live there?”

 

_Click._

“I’m really happy, Arthur.”

He looked happy, in this photo. It was the only one Arthur could find that was still almost completely intact. The only photo that had survived Merlin’s fire with both of them still in it.

“I’m happy too, Merlin,” Arthur had responded, barely holding back laughter at the whip cream smeared across Merlin’s forehead.

“You two are disgusting, you know,” Merlin’s mother had commented candidly, setting the camera down. “But I’m happy for you.”

“God, mom, don’t be so sentimental!” Merlin joked, feigning reproach. “And you didn’t have to take a photo – way to ruin the moment! I’ll just go get this off my face. Don’t mind me, just trying to have a little undisturbed romance with my fiancée.”

“In _my_ kitchen,” his mother levelled.

“You know you love it!” Merlin sang back as he departed.

Merlin’s mother turned back to Arthur, steeling herself after a pause and reaching forward to clasp his hand. “I do love it,” she said dreamily. “Him… being happy. Merlin has never connected well with people, after the death of his father, you know.”

“I know,” Arthur said automatically, then, on second thought, added: “He never talks about it.”

A pause. “That’s okay. I just want you to know that I really am happy for you. For both of you. What you have is special.”

 

_Click._

The sound of the fireplace, latching shut.

Arthur carefully stood and straightened the edges of the photographs he’d managed to salvage, a futile endeavor considering the charred scraps continued to disintegrate unevenly the more he handled them.

Yet, he couldn’t help himself, standing in front of a fireplace of obliterated memories and nothing left to look at but empty, makeshift propped-up frames.

“This can’t be happening,” he told the photographs, blinking away tears, clasping them as tightly as he could without crushing them, feeling the edge of Merlin’s ring digging into his palm beneath the fragments, feeling as if he just needed to line up the pictures right, to keep moving them, fixing them, putting them back in order until they were whole again. “No,” he said. “No.” As if it were an order.

He would say it a thousand times. He would say whatever he had to, say it again and again if only it brought Merlin back in front of him, say… what?

He stared down at the last picture he had of Merlin in his hands. Ash had smeared across the photo, marring the beautiful stripe of whip cream on Merlin’s laughing face.

Merlin’s eyes shone.

Arthur didn’t know where to begin, didn’t know how to describe, didn’t know how to control this situation – he had spent to long waiting for the next promotion, too long struggling with his commute and rude coworkers and the way he dressed, so long looking at his calendar that he forgot what days meant to him. He had no idea how to be sorry for it. Some words wouldn’t fit even within a picture’s thousand. 

The only time he had looked, really looked at Merlin, was when he was gone. When it was too late.

The door _clicked_ sharply behind Arthur as he left. 

There was nobody to capture the moment.


End file.
